Research agreement with Jardín Botánico de Medellín

Through the RAINFOR project funded by the Moore Foundation and led by Oliver Phillips, the University of Leeds has completed the signing of a research agreement with the Jardín Botánico de Medellín Joaquin Antonio Uribe, in Antioquia, Colombia. The agreement means that RAINFOR will contribute towards the monitoring of a network of forest plots across Colombia led by Esteban Alvarez and Álvaro Cogollo since the 1990’s. There will also be some student support, and publications are anticipated on the biomass, carbon storage, and dynamics of Colombian forests. The agreement runs until at least 2012.

Colombia is a global mega-diversity country, with 40 times as many native plant species as the depauperate United Kingdom, for example. There are distinct blocks of rainforest and cloud forests in Amazonia, the Pacific Choco coast, and in watersheds draining into the Caribbean. The country’s complex dry forests and montane forests have been especially fragmented, so ground-based monitoring of the areas that remain is also critical.